Bonedevil
by Jontg
Summary: A young elf and his fiancee torch a village of hobgoblins, and the lone survivor swears revenge. Six thousand years and sixty levels later, he catches up to them... and Jonathanas Darkstar learns the every action has a consequence.
1. Prologue

Hello, there--I'm Jontg, soon-to-be highschool grad and amateur writer. What you're about to read is a novelization (fanficization?) of my first and longest running D&D campaign, which began in 2001 when I started playing the game, and ended in 2003 (!). It began as a typical, babies-first-campaign sort of affair, with prewritten adventures and starring a cardboard cutout elf mage ultra-stu named, of all things, Jonathanas Darkstar. As it went on, however, Jonathanas began to become a person instead of a stat sheet--and as I matured as a player and DM, his foolhardy actions began to have serious consequences. Near the apex of his career, I began thinking ways to retire not just the character, but the world-setting that had been so drastically altered by his presence that it was no longer recognizable as Greyhawk--and I remembered the village of hobgoblins that he had so casually wiped out in between _The Standing Stone_ and _Heart of Nightfang Spire_. Suppose there was one survivor from that massacre? And suppose he'd been stalking Jonathanas all these years, growing stronger and stronger just as Jonathanas had, until he possessed the same sort of broken, world-shattering power?

Thus was born Bonedevil--my first epic level character, and my first villain. Enjoy the fic.

--.

**PROLOGUE**

_An adventurer is a powerful being--stronger, smarter, and luckier than any normal man. Despite this, or perhaps because of this, we often forget that all beings, no matter how powerful, are beholden to the basic laws of reality. In a world of magic, such laws may be bent, circumvented, or ignored altogether with the proper application of arcane power--yet they are always there, waiting for us to grow arrogant that they might show us our place again._

_There are many such laws--"that which rises must fall," "nothing is gained without sacrifice," and "all that is must end" being among the best known--but, I think, the most fundamental and inviolable of all these is the one that we most often overlook:_

"_Every action has a consequence."_

_No one, mortal, demon, or god, is exempt from this law--whether it be the words and gestures of a mage calling fire from thin air, the stroke of the assassin's dagger which changes the fate of a nation, or the tavern brawl that forces a crew of intrepid heroes down the road to adventure, nothing happens on its own. Any given event is caused by another event, and it in turn causes yet another. So does the universe continue on its endless cycle of action and reaction--and woe, indeed, to he who thinks himself exempt from this supreme law of the cosmos._

_This is the story of an action, which caused a reaction, which caused another reaction, and so forth. Through the lens of time, we may try to place blame upon any or all of those involved in the dire chain of events which form the tale you are now reading. Perhaps Bonedevil was the true villain, for the deeds he performed will leave permanent scars on the bodies and souls of all he touched throughout the travesty that was his life. Or was it Jonathanas who is truly responsible, for was it not his brutal attack on then-Grunthark's village that set the young hobgoblin on the blood-soaked path he trod the rest of his days? Was it Yarrick Zan's fault for setting Jonathanas himself upon the adventurer's path? Seshas's, for allowing the Darkstar Clan to stagnate after the death of Jonathanas I? The LeShays', for opening the portal to the Far Realm? Azathoth's, for creating reality in the first place? The farther back one goes, the more twisted and complex the web of cause and effect becomes, until existence itself is a sin. I shall leave this mangled skein to the philosophers--for I am here only to tell you the story…_


	2. An Action

This fic is the first I ever wrote, and the only one I've ever managed to finish--I started it in June of '03, technically finished it in August, and I've been tweaking it in-between projects ever since. In fact, if you look carefully, you can tell from the quality of the writing what parts are original and which parts have been modified over time. This chapter is almost unchanged from the original version, except for the last few paragraphs where we see Rose allow Jonathanas to casually incinerate the village because, of course, a cleric of Corellon shouldn't see any problem with the massacre of old women and babies--they're just hobgoblins, after all!

---**  
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**An Action**

587 CY

Jonathanas Darkstar caught the hobgoblin's sword on his own, twisted it out of its owner's grasp, and stabbed the creature in the gut. The muscular humanoid dropped like a stone, and the elven warrior-mage turned to look for a new foe.

Beside him, his life-mate, Roselenna, slashed through another hob's throat, then turned towards the most closely packed group and spoke an invocation to the gods. Holy power flashed from her fingertips, burning and blasting the evil creatures with the elementary force of Good.

"There must be more than a hundred of these things," she shouted.

"I know," Jonathanas yelled back. "Exhilarating, isn't it?"

"Exhilarating is not exactly the word I would use!"

"Alright, then, how about--_whoa_."

This last was uttered as Jonathanas threw himself backwards to avoid the twin kukris of a young female hobgoblin, who had leapt from the shadows with a horrifying shriek. Her blue eyes shone with hatred as both blades slid off of his sword, and she launched into a dazzling spinning attack. Jonathanas parried strike after strike after strike, but the female kept coming. Roselenna tried to get behind her, but she struck the elfmaid in the head with both pommels and resumed her frenzied attack on Darkstar. Just as she turned to strike, however, Jonathanas shouted a single mystical phrase:

_"Kalith-Karan, Tobanis Kar!"_

Five bolts of magical force leapt from his hand in lightning succession, slamming into the woman and spinning her in a complete circle. Badly wounded, the hobgoblin fought on nonetheless, striking with both blades at once. Jonathanas deflected one, but the other traced a thin red line across his left forearm. Ignoring the pain, Jonathanas slashed at the swordswoman's face, hoping to blind her. She blocked his blow with one knife and slid the other down his blade, forcing Darkstar to shift his grip on the hilt, lest he lose fingers. She used this moment of weakness to knock his sword out of his hand, and lunged at the wizard with both kukris raised.

But Jonathanas had prepared for this.

He extended his hand towards the fallen sword and shouted the words of a _Mage Hand_ spell. The sword flew into his hand, and before the female could stop her lunge, he plunged the sword into her breast. She stopped in her tracks, a look of confusion and pain on her face. She stared dumbly at the blade growing from her chest, piercing her heart, and spoke three words.

"I'm sorry, Grunthark."

And she was dead. Jonathanas wiped his blade on her tunic, and turned to look for a new foe--but there were none. The elven couple stood ankle-deep in red-tinged mud, amid the corpses of nearly three dozen hobgoblins.

Jonathanas raised a hand, lightning crackling from his fingertips. "Let's torch the place--I don't want some poor buzzard to get food poisoning from this scum. And if there's anyone else hiding around here, the fire'll flush them out."

Roselenna stumbled slightly, head reeling from the blow she'd taken. "Why bother? Anyone who'd hide from us is likely a child or an elder. Surely they aren't a threat to us."

"Rose, these are goblinoids we're talking about--everything they own is stolen from the people they killed. Even the village itself was likely taken over from somebody else. Trust me on this, love--the filthy creatures deserve whatever they get."

"I suppose you're right, dear." Roselenna stood aside, and Jonathanas unleashed his lightning spell. The bolt scythed through the village, igniting timber and straw and leaving a trail of fire wherever it touched. Another bolt on the opposite direction, and the village was ablaze.

As the two walked out of the square, Jonathanas smiled, vindicated, as screams began to rise from the burning huts. "See? I told you they were hiding."


	3. A Reaction

This is the only chapter of _Bonedevil_ that's unchanged from the original fic I wrote in '03--observe the difference in quality. I know, it sucks--trust me, it improves.

**--- **

**A Reaction  
**

Grunthark the hobgoblin was in a very good mood.

His fine mithral breastplate shone through the foliage of Suss Forest, making him an easy target, but he didn't care. He strode confidently through the woods, a freshly killed doe slung across his back, belting out a bawdy dwarven drinking song at the top of his lungs. He wanted the whole world to know where and who he was: He was Grunthark, hobgoblin spellsword, and today was his wedding day.

He stopped singing for a moment to wallow in the sheer joy of it all. That afternoon he would be wed to Chieftess Kira, and that night… he shivered in anticipation. _Kira,_ he thought. _What a wonderful name--what a wonderful woman!_ Grunthark imagined her when last he saw her-- her deep blue eyes, her long brown hair, her shapely curves (in all the right places, even!)… The very vision of her quickened his step. In about a minute now, he would see his little village. A moment later he would see the tribe gathered in the center, awaiting the groom's return from the ritual hunt. Then he would see Kira, waiting for him to lead her to the altar, and then…and then…

He emerged from the forest to find his village in a blazing ruin.

He broke into a run, rushing past the burning wreck where he had been born, past the blackened corpses of his family and friends, racing to the center of the village.

_She can't be dead! She's too smart, she's too skilled, she can't be…_ A litany of frantic denial swam through his mind as he searched for something, anything that would tell him of Kira's fate.

He found Kira.

She lay dead, pierced through the heart, kukri fallen from her limp hands, her blue eyes closed forever. Grunthark threw back his head and screamed in rage and grief.

He screamed in loss.

He screamed in agony.

He screamed until he ran out of breath, then inhaled and screamed again.

Kira was dead. His tribe was gone. Only he remained, howling his anguish to the gods.

Finally, he could scream no more. He collapsed in the dirt, crying uncontrollably.

"Kira," he sobbed, "Oh, gods, Kira…"

The crackle of flames interrupted his grief. For a moment, he considered throwing himself into the blaze, dying with Kira. Then a better plan presented itself. He ran through the village, hoping that his own hut was undamaged. Fortunately, the fire had not yet reached his house. He smashed down the door, rummaged hastily through his belongings, and retrieved a black cloak, a pouch of spell components, a pack of traveling gear, and a magic scroll. He rushed out the ruined doorway, and ran into the forest.

From a safe vantage point, he watched as his home was consumed by fire. _Kira,_ he swore,_ I will find out who has done this to you. And I will kill them._ From this moment on, he would live for one thing, and one thing only.

Revenge.


	4. A Bargain

This chapter is also unchanged--primarily because I don't have Bonedevil's character sheet from this part of the campaign, and I don't remember his exact abilities at this time. 

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**A Bargain**

Grunthark wandered east for days, then weeks, and after a month he finally came to the great city of Stoneheim, in the Orc realm of Pomarj. There he worked as a mercenary for many years until he had enough money to acquire a modest home, with all the things a spellcaster might need--a library full of ancient lore, shelves full of spell components, and, most importantly, a permanent summoning diagram inscribed on the floor of a room built just for that purpose. Today, he used it for the first time.

He unrolled the scroll he had brought with him from his village--the one he had taken from the tribe's previous shaman when he had murdered him--and began to read aloud the runes of power inscribed on it. As he read them, he felt a strange sensation, a mixture of fear, guilt, and excitement, like a child who has just used the most profane word he knows in front of his parents. He dismissed these feelings as foolish, and continued reading.

Finally, the spell was complete, and the glyphs ringing the diagram began to glow with a strange, orange light. A thin, glowing line appeared in the center of the circle and began to grow wider, filling the diagram with hellish flames. The sigils blazed like miniature suns as they held in the awful energies of the spell. Suddenly, the light began to change shape, coalescing into a tall, red-scaled humanoid with immense, bat-like wings.

Poisonous green fluid dripped from the Pit Fiend's fangs, sizzling as it hit the floor. Its long, forked tail twitched and slithered across the stones. Its eyes gleamed with hellfire, promising eternal damnation to those unfortunates who angered this prince among devils.

Grunthark stared calmly back at the monster. "Bel," he addressed the devil, "welcome to my humble home."

Bel, lord of the first circle of Hell, flexed his huge shoulders and glared at the mortal who had dared to confine him so. "MORTAL, WHO ARE YOU TO SUMMON BEL, LORD OF AVERNUS?"

"Simply a mage seeking the advice of the Father of all Pit Fiends, mighty one," said Grunthark. "You know what I seek?"

"THE RITUAL OF BINDING?"

"Precisely, omniscient one."

"AND HOW MIGHT I BENEFIT FROM GRANTING THIS KNOWLEDGE TO YET ANOTHER MORTAL?"

"Why, the undying gratitude of one of the most powerful mages in Oerth, great one."

"HMMM…" the enormous brow furrowed in thought. "PERHAPS WE CAN ARRANGE SOMETHING. I WILL GIVE YOU THE SECRET OF BINDING IF YOU WILL… _REMOVE_ A CERTAIN DIABOLIST WHO HAS BEEN USING MY MINIONS FOR HIS OWN SCHEMES."

"Gladly, gracious one." Grunthark bowed once, then terminated the summoning spell, releasing Bel back to Avernus, the first layer of the Nine Hells of Baator.

Grunthark entered his study, and retrieved his armor, now painted black and covered with spikes; his sword, a black-bladed item that drained life energy with a touch; and his spell components. A simple _Teleport_ spell got him to the wizard's tower in seconds. He cast another spell, and the black iron gates were blasted from their hinges. He then called upon his enchanted armor and faded into the shadows.

Practically invisible, Grunthark crept down the entrance hall until he found a set of huge wooden doors. He drew a vial of potion from a belt pouch, popped the cork, and drank it. The liquid fell down his throat like cold air spilling from a gnomish ice chest, and his body transformed into a cloud of vapor. Grunthark wafted under the door and flowed down the corridor, up a long, winding staircase, past guards, traps, and obstacles, and finally into the wizard's chamber.

The wizard in question, a tall, thin man without a wisp of hair anywhere on his face, was in the middle of summoning an insectoid Gelugon devil and binding it within a temporary containment diagram. _Another of Bel's minions, no doubt,_ thought Grunthark. He dismissed the _Gaseous Form_ spell and drew his sword.

The noise startled the wizard, who whipped around to glare at Grunthark.

"Who are you, and why do you interrupt my work?" he asked with more than a bit of annoyance.

"I am your death," hissed Grunthark as his sword leapt at the diabolist's heart.

The black blade plunged into the mage's chest, draining life energy as it cut. The wizard staggered back, blood staining the front of his robes.

Then he scuffed his foot across the binding diagram.

The newly freed Gelugon lashed out with its mantis-like foreclaws, latching on to its former captor and dragging him into the portal it had arrived by. The dying mage screamed in pain and terror, trying to rip out his own heart rather than face the awful torments that surely awaited him at the hands of Bel's sadistic Kyton minions. The Gelugon, however, saw what he was doing and simply shifted its grip to hold the diabolist's arms. Then it closed the portal, and the last screams of the damned wizard were swallowed by the shriek of dimensional boundaries closing.

Knowing his study much better than the diabolist's tower, Grunthark was able to _Teleport_ there easily. He summoned Bel again and reminded him of their bargain.

"VERY WELL, THEN," rumbled the archdevil, "I SHALL BESTOW UPON YOU THE SECRET OF BINDING." The immense Pit Fiend held out his hand. A gout of blue fire erupted from the devil's claws, and a large scroll appeared.

"THIS SCROLL HOLDS THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE RITUAL OF BINDING. USE IT WITH MY BLESSING."

"I thank you, generous one." Grunthark terminated the summoning spell. 


	5. A Transformation

This chapter is both unchanged from the original version, and probably the only good bit of writing I did in that era.

**--- **

**A Transformation**

Over the eons, Humans, Elves, and others have gone to great and terrible lengths in the quest for ever greater magical power. But by far the greatest and most terrible of all is the ritual of binding: the act of replacing one's own skin with a live demon.

Grunthark stood in the center of his own summoning diagram, wearing only a pair of trousers. He held the scroll in both hands as he read the words of the forbidden spell. The runes of the circle began to glow as he read the final words. The scroll burst into blue flame, but Grunthark felt no pain.

Then the spell kicked in.

Grunthark had known that the pain would be tremendous--after all, he was destroying his entire epidermis and replacing it with a monster of pure evil--but nothing could have prepared him for actually experiencing it. His entire body burst into flames, and a horrible screeching laughter filled the air, practically turning his brain inside-out. Through the haze of agony, he saw a huge demon that looked like a cross between a human and a vulture. The Vrock cawed as it floated through the abyssal void towards the hobgoblin. It drew steadily closer, and Grunthark could feel the heat radiating from it, smell its foul breath. It came closer and closer, until it overlapped Grunthark--then the pain doubled, and brought with it a sense of being violated in the worst way imaginable. The laughter got louder and louder, and he realized that it was now coming from his own lips. He could feel something attaching itself to his ravaged body. The demonic skin slowly covered him, bringing about another wave of excruciating pain. He couldn't move, not even to scream. He couldn't breathe.

Finally, just before he slipped into unconsciousness, the pain ended.

Grunthark lay on the floor, gasping for breath, for several minutes. Eventually, he got to his feet, staggered into his study, and looked in his scrying mirror.

He had no hair. A hobgoblin was covered in hair--fur, in fact--but the only hair anywhere on his body was on his head--and it had changed. As a matter of fact, everything about him had changed.

His once-brown hair was now pitch black. His brown eyes glowed red. His skin, now hairless, had an oily sheen, and it didn't fit. It sagged in some places, and was stretched tightly over bone in others. He knew it would adjust eventually, but now it was rather unnerving. He quickly got dressed, had breakfast, and meditated, gathering magical energy to power his spells.

That afternoon, he decided to pay a visit to an old friend. He cast _Plane Shift_ and was taken to the Plain of Infinite Portals, the first of 666 layers in the plane known as the Abyss. Another _Teleport_ spell took him to the town of Broken Reach, ruled by a Succubus named Red Shroud. Grunthark walked to her tower, obliterated her guardian monsters without a second thought, and strode up to the demonic sorceress's personal chambers.

The doors were closed, barred, and locked from the inside. Putting his ear to the door, Grunthark heard various and assorted moans, giggles, and the occasional shriek. No detective skills were needed to surmise what was going on behind them. Knowing that the Succubus had no real need for privacy, he placed one finger on the door, shattering it.

Shroud did not bother to cover up as Grunthark walked into the room (Succubi generally not wearing much in the first place), though her paramour dove under the bed and lay there, quivering in terror.

"Hey there, big boy," the demon purred, inching toward Grunthark. But the sorcerer ignored her--he had known Red Shroud for far too long to fall for such a simple and obvious attempt at seduction. He had no desire to have his life force sucked out while coupling with a demon. Besides, since Kira's death, Grunthark had not had any interest in sexual pleasure--but the Succubus would probably never let off.

"What do you need?"

"I've decided to reconsider your offer," said Grunthark. "No, not _that_ offer," he said quickly as the demon started moving towards him again, "the offer of training at the Bleak Academy."

"Well," murmured the demon, "what makes you think that offer is still open?" She attempted to rub against him, but realized at the last moment that he was wearing his spiked armor.

"There aren't many people who a) can afford the entrance fee, b) want to sit in a room full of demons, and c) have any intention of training in the dark arts," Grunthark replied matter-of-factly.

"Oh. Well, I suppose I could check to see if we still have any openings, but I'm sure there are still many qualified candidates. Why should I pick you?"

"Because you want me to sleep with you?"

"Good reason. Hey, Fluffy! Go home!"

A hyena jumped out from under the bed, and ran out the ruined door.

"You are a very sick woman."

"I know."

So Grunthark studied at Red Shroud's Bleak Academy for several years. The first few weeks were a bit challenging, as the larger demons constantly teased, tormented, and generally abused him. But after he incinerated several of his classmates (many of which were supposed to be immune to fire) he was treated with abject terror by most students and personnel. He had good marks from the start (and was probably the only student who hadn't slept with Red to get them), and graduated at the top of his class.

---

And about three months after this exchange occured in-game, the Monster Manual II came out, with stats for the half-demon, half-hyena Abyssal Ravager. O.o  



	6. A Monster

Originally, the story was divided into books, because at this stage in my life I was a pretentious little bastard. This is the end of Book One, and an impromptu inventory of Bonedevil's capabilities with ten levels each of Sorcerer, Fighter, Spellsword, Blood Magus, Pale Master, and Acolyte of the Skin. The dialogue between Bonedevil and his Evil Self (TM) is blatantly ripped off of _Spiderman_, as were most of Bonedevil's mannerisms in the original version. If he hadn't had a permanent _fly_ spell at the time, I would've given him a little glider-thingy to ride around on. God, I was such a dweeb back then...

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**A Monster  
**

Over the next milennium, Grunthark slowly mastered both spell and sword.

He learned to draw on the power of his demonic skin to produce powerful magical effects.

He learned to craft armor of interlocking bones, and forge them into his own armor to create a powerful necromantic defense.

He gained many of the powers normally only bestowed upon undead, including immunity to poison, and replaced his left arm with an undead prosthesis, granting him unnatural strength and several lethal touch attacks.

He learned to summon fiends, and to animate and control undead.

He learned to harness his own blood for powering spells, and gained control over his vital functions, as well as those of others.

He could slay with a touch, granting momentary consciousness to an opponent's blood and making him explode from hydrostatic pressure.

He recreated the ancient soul-eating sword, Blackrazor, imbuing it with a malevolent intellect and a fanatical desire to serve him.

He delved into ancient tomes and forbidden lore, extending his lifespan by millions of years.

He performed countless experiments on every living thing he could get his hands on, noting the results and recreating successful ones on himself.

Finally, after thousands of years of research, practice, and experimentation, Grunthark had achieved what he had set out to do on that day when he summoned Bel: he had become one of the most powerful beings in the multiverse…

Powerful enough to make Asmodeus himself break out in a cold sweat at the mere mention of his name…

Powerful enough to make deities tremble on their thrones…

Powerful enough to shake the very fabric of reality…

Powerful enough to bring the entire multiverse down around everyone's ears and live to brag about it…

Powerful enough to fight Jonathanas Darkstar.

Grunthark sat in his study, remembering the day it had all started, remembering when his black, spiked armor had been smooth and silver, a song had been on his lips---he hadn't sung since then---and he had been engaged to marry Kira.

He remembered the shock, the denial, the hollowness, and the anger.

_Why did you die, Kira? If only I had been there. _

**_You would have died too. _**

_No! I could have saved her! I… _

**_Don't kid yourself. There was nothing you could have done. _**

_How would you know? _

**_I was there. _**

_Who are you? _

**_Who are you? _**

_I'm Grunthark. _

**_So am I. _**

_You're lying! _

**_I'm telling you the complete truth. _**

_No, you're not! If I had died instead of her--- _

**_Then she would still be dead. Darkstar and his female killed everyone and everything. If you had thrown yourself on his blade, he would have shaken you off like so much dead meat and killed her anyway. _**

_I still should've died with her! _

**_Think, you idiot! If you loved her enough to die for her, why didn't you jump into the flames when you had the chance? _**

_I wanted to hurt Jonathanas. I couldn't do that if I was dead. _

**_Exactly. If you had killed yourself for her, she would be dead anyway, and there would have been no one to mourn her. _**

_Or avenge her? _

**_Precisely._**

Grunthark awoke with a start. He jumped up from the desk and stood before the mirror. He saw a tall hobgoblin with a distinctly demonic visage. One arm was red-skinned and covered in spikes, and the other was a construct of bones. He spoke a word of power and his armor appeared, a suit of black iron full plate, studded with spikes and covered in what appeared to be ivory but on closer inspection was revealed to be actual bones worked into the metal. Another word, and Blackrazor appeared at his side, gibbering madly and hungering for souls.

As the hobgoblin spell-sword looked at himself, he realized that he was not Grunthark. Grunthark was a carefree young hob in a silver breastplate, a doe on his back and a song on his lips. The being before him was a part-demon, part-ghoul warrior-mage with a soul-eating sword, spiky black plate armor, and a chip on his shoulder the size of the Tarrasque.

He needed a new name, and even as the thought entered his head, a name came too.

_I am Bonedevil. _

_Look out, Darkstar. Here I come._


	7. Lessons in Loss

Here, we take a look back to the months shortly after Chapter Two. A little bit of Jonathanas's pedigree is unearthed, but the full story is in another fic, currently in progress. Jonathanas enjoyed total protection from _dismissal_ and similar spells--for no particular reason, he was treated as a native of whatever plane he was on at the time. He also had good relations with everyone he met--technically, this was because he put maximum ranks in Diplomacy, but in the end it just made him more of a Stu.

--

**Lessons in Loss**

587 CY

Grunthark the hobgoblin was having a terrible week.

His home in flames, his tribe put to the sword, and worst of all, his fiancée, Kira, was dead. He had nowhere to go, for who would give shelter, or even mercy, to a hob? He had nothing but a mithral breastplate, a long-sword, a few coins, his spell components, and one magic scroll. His only option, it seemed, was to work as a mercenary.

He wandered on for about a month, until he reached the Orc city of Stoneheim. There, he found employment, and in no time at all, he had amassed enough wealth to purchase a tiny hut, with a shelf of books, a cabinet of spell components, and a small scrying vessel. Today, that scrying vessel was used for the first time.

Grunthark cast the requisite spell, and peered into the bowl of water. "Show me," he hissed, "show me the one who murdered Kira."

The waters rippled, and displayed an image of a young elf, about Grunthark's age, with long, brown hair, brown eyes, and a black pentagram tattooed on the back of his right hand. He carried a spell book, and wore the simple robes of a traveling wizard, but a sword hung at his side, and he looked as though he knew how to use it. A tiny dragon rode at his shoulder, and a lovely, red-haired elf maiden walked beside him.

Grunthark had prepared a more powerful spell to tell him more about the murderer, but he did not need it. Everyone anywhere in the multiverse knew this elf: Jonathanas II, son of Alein, the last of a line of potent inter-planar adventurers who went by the name of Darkstar.

_What? Jonathanas Darkstar killed Kira?_ "This… can't be…"

No one had defeated a Darkstar in almost a thousand years. The last to do was a titanic red dragon called Ashardalon, who had slain Jonathanas's gods-only-knew-how-many-greats-grandmother, the druidess Dydd--and Ash had been slain three thousand years later by Dydd's grandson, the first Jonathanas, the namesake of the one Grunthark now watched. The Darkstars were invincible, legendary champions of the multiverse, who on several occasions had helped shape the very fabric of reality. The eldest of the clan had surpassed even the gods themselves. Jonathanas was just beginning his adventuring career, and already he had been to more dimensions than most adventurers of twice his level had even heard of. He possessed a strange mastery over the planes, making him immune to any hostile planar traits. He consorted freely with the angelic and the fiendish alike, strode through the realms of fire, ice, and darkness, and had even met Asmodeus in person (who then asked him for his autograph). To even contemplate challenging such a being was sheer madness. The only way to even survive a combat encounter with him would be to gain the same kind of plane-shaking power. But to do so would take centuries, maybe more.

Grunthark sighed, and turned away from his scrying bowl with a grim smile on his face. "I guess I'd better get started…"


	8. Evil Ascendant

Yes, you're reading that right--I skipped six thousand years ahead. Yes, Bonedevil has his own pocket universe. Yes, he even scares people from Ravenloft. Yes, he's making an army of undead that we'll never see again. Yes, looking at my writing through the lens of history makes me want to reach for a spork. Any other questions?

---**  
**

**Evil Ascendant**

6692 CY

_Bonedevil._

It was a new name, but it came easily to the lips of the hobgoblin once called Grunthark. He sat in his study, ensconced in a private demiplane--a pocket universe created by awesome magical exertion and immune to _Scrying, Plane Shift,_ or any other form of magical observation or travel. Only Bonedevil could enter, and only Bonedevil could see in or out. His scrying mirror stood in a corner, dormant for the time being. His armor, all of black iron and interlocking bones, stood beside his desk. Blackrazor, the soul-drinker, hung on the wall, humming a deranged tune to itself. Shelves of books lined the other wall, with one entire shelf being taken up with an enormous tome: The Codex of Infinite Planes. Behind him, a hallway led to other parts of the demiplane, including the summoning room, the torture chamber (manned by a staff of unusually sadistic demons), the dining room, the specimen cages, the laboratory, and the portal room. He had once had a guest room, but after realizing that no one was going to visit a mad arch-villain, he converted it into a storage closet. Unfortunately, he had never gotten around to removing the portal that led to that chamber, so there had been an unfortunate accident about a month ago when the ambassadors from Ravenloft materialized in a vat of acid.

But, declarations of war from entire universes aside, Bonedevil was having a very good week.

Now, he sat at his desk, buried in cryptic scrolls, strange substances, and a bizarre mishmash of equipment. He was in the process of developing one of the most powerful spells he had ever created, an awful spell that made the target starve to death in a split second, and rise as a vile undead known as a Famine Spirit. The initial research was over, and he was now crafting the final dweomer.

Bonedevil held a vial of wyvern's blood over the glass enclosure that contained the energy to be shaped into the spell. He chanted incantation after incantation as he slowly poured a single drop of the foul stuff into the container. The spell's energies instantly absorbed the blood, and began to turn red.

He then took a bit of dried human flesh and added that as well. The energy became a sickly brownish color.

A pint of his own blood, a rib from a freshly killed faerie, some powdered virgin's milk, a pair of raven's eggs, a live weasel, and a half dozen fist-sized diamonds later, the spell was complete. Bonedevil cackled in malevolent glee as he donned his armor and slid Blackrazor into his scabbard. It was time to test _Starvation_.

He walked over to his scrying mirror, and scried a random individual. The mirror shimmered, and showed him a huge, muscular man, probably half-orc. He was uproariously drunk, and was staggering through an alley, most likely in the exact opposite direction he meant to go.

He would be perfect. Bonedevil stepped through the mirror, and into the man's path. Before the drunkard could even register the presence of another life form in the alley, Bonedevil pointed a clawed finger at him and snarled the trigger words of the new spell. The man screamed horribly and shriveled into a freakish construct of skin and bones. Seconds later, however, the emaciated corpse began to regain its former girth, and much more. It bloated into an obese monstrosity, with a distended maw full of razor-sharp teeth. The undead horror's eyes shone with hunger, and a river of drool flowed from its mouth. It looked at Bonedevil, and flopped to the ground in the closest thing to prostration that could be attained by a creature half again as wide as it was tall.

Bonedevil looked at his latest creation, and was extremely pleased. The Famine Spirit was motivated entirely by hunger, but would serve its creator without question, as would any spawn it created. Imagining a horde of morbidly obese undead munching their way across the Flanaess practically made him collapse with barely suppressed laughter.

"Come, my new minion," said Bonedevil, somehow managing to sound sinister while choking back a rather un-villainous giggle, "we must leave before we are spotted."

The Famine Spirit followed its master into the portal created by the scrying mirror. As soon as they were back in the study, Bonedevil sent the undead off to the monster pens, and sat back down at his desk. He summoned a homunculus to clear the various items and ingredients off the desk, and pondered what to do next.

Everything he had done over the past millennium or so had been directed towards becoming powerful enough to fight and kill Jonathanas Darkstar. Now that he had achieved that goal, he needed a plan of action for when he finally fought the elf. _And Roselenna,_ he corrected himself. Darkstar rarely went anywhere without that redheaded cleric. Bonedevil was confident that he could defeat both Jonathanas and his life-mate, but he would need a better plan than just flying in and hacking away.

_But perhaps that isn't necessary. Maybe I could separate the two. Then I could easily defeat them one at a time. But how to do that? _

_Perhaps I could perform some act of widespread destruction, forcing them to split up in order to more easily manage the disaster relief teams---no, they can communicate over any distance with those Star-jewels they carry. _

_Damn! Those amulets would prevent any loss of communication. Even if I did split them up, they could alert each other to any threat the instant it appeared! _

_Well then, it seems I need a plan._

Bonedevil thought for hours, and finally came up with the one thing that Jonathanas would never see coming.

_I won't attack him. _

_I'll attack everyone else. _

_I'll kill everyone he holds dear, starting with distant relatives and casual acquaintances, and ending with Roselenna herself. With each death, Jonathanas will be strained closer and closer to the breaking point, and with Roselenna's death, he will snap. He will fall into despair, and then--only then--will I grant him the sweet release of death._

A low rumble escaped Bonedevil's cracked lips. It slowly grew to a chuckle, then a giggle, until the sorcerer threw back his head and roared with crazed laughter.

"_Ready or not, boy--here I come!_"


	9. A Series of Unsavory Acts

Now, it's early July of '03, and my work is starting to get better--and the Darkstar family history is getting more complex. The whole gnome vigilante thing is from _Enemies and Allies_, but I gave Gerbo and Co. my own twist--forgetting, of course, that _Greyhawk_ gnomes wouldn't know a rocket if it hit them in the face. A few of the jokes seem a bit juvenile in retrospect, but overall, it's much better than previous chapters.

---

**A Series of Unsavory Acts**

6693 CY

Gerbo Flintwhistle, gnome vigilante, knocked on the door of the halfling adventurer Milo Underbough. As had happened yesterday, and the day before that, and so on for several weeks, no one answered, so the diminutive justicar waved to his posse. "Come on, boys! Bring that powder keg up!"

A party of gnomes rushed up to the door, carrying a barrel of dwarven blasting powder. They placed the keg at the door, lit the fuse, and ran across the street.

The powder detonated as usual, incinerating the door, the front half of the house, and several passersby. Gerbo made a quick tally of the burnt and blasted corpses for tax purposes, noted that the surrounding houses were also on fire, donned his patent-pending combination back-mounted incendiary projectile and propulsion device, and blasted up to the second floor of the ruined house. He crashed through the ceiling, losing the CBMIPD in the process, and fell back through the gaping hole he had blasted in the roof. He landed in a heap on the floor of the halfling's bedroom. He looked at what lay in the bed, took a whiff of the air, and vomited up the cheese sandwich he had had for lunch.

Milo was dead, and had been so for at least a month. The halfling had been stabbed through the heart, and from the look of it, he had been in the middle of some romantic encounter, though his partner was nowhere to be found (most likely, Flintwhistle surmised, she had actually performed the deed). Milo's face, though beginning to rot, was a mixture of shock, fear, and pure, unadulterated horror.

Choking down the bile that still tried to surge up his throat, Gerbo examined the halfling further. He had been stabbed through the exact center of his heart, by a large sword by the look of the wound, and a strange glyph seemed to have been branded over the entry point. It featured a leering demonic face superimposed over two bones crossed to form an X. Gerbo noted that the flesh around the wound had withered much more than the rest of Milo's body, as though it had begun to rot the instant it came into contact with the murder weapon. In fact, the wound did not even seem to have bled. Flintwhistle had begun to search the room for the weapon in question when he noticed the blood.

A message had been scrawled in blood on the wall above the dead halfling. The blood was definitely not from a halfling, or from any natural creature in fact. It had a slight greenish tint and smelled of copper. It glowed as though it were liquid fire. The message was written in Abyssal, the obscene language of the Demons.

JONATHANAS DARKSTAR, YOU MURDERED EVERYONE I KNEW OR LOVED.

NOW I WILL MURDER EVERYONE YOU KNOW OR LOVE.

THIS IS MILO UNDERBOUGH--ADVENTURING COMPANION AND COUSIN TWENTY-THREE TIMES REMOVED.

BEWARE, DARKSTAR, SOON I WILL STRIKE CLOSER TO YOUR HEART.

---BONEDEVIL

Gerbo felt his gut twist into a knot. Jonathanas Darkstar? Could this Bonedevil person mean Patriarch Jonathanas? The Darkstars were the stuff of legends, and Jonathanas was the most legendary of all. He had never killed an innocent creature in his life, let alone murdered anyone. And how did Bonedevil manage to find Milo? He had kept his heritage a secret when traveling among civilians, and no one would have guessed the hint of elf blood he possessed, a remnant from the marriage of the first Jonathanas to Marli Underbough almost ten thousand years ago. Gerbo only knew about it because he was related to Simara Darkstar, Jonathanas II's grandmother. Only a powerful mage could have pierced the web of secrets and anti-divination spells that protected the halfling's identity. And, of course, only a female halfling could have gotten into Milo's bed. That narrowed the list down considerably, but Gerbo couldn't think of any prominiscuous female halfling archmagi who owned swords longer than they themselves were tall and wrote messages on walls in demon blood. He would have to report this to a higher authority.

Meanwhile, unnoticed by the investigator, Bonedevil sped away from his vantage point atop a nearby house, feeling very unclean.

It had been the best way he could think of to get close enough to kill the cautious halfling, but he still wondered if polymorphing into a female and seducing Underbough had been the only way. Still, what was done was done, and feeling like a slut wouldn't change a thing. Besides, his first kill should be as shocking as possible, and that was as shocking as they come. Next on the agenda: go home, take a _long_ bath, and slaughter Razoar the Efreet.

About an hour later, Gerbo was in the Darkstar clan's private demiplane, telling Jonathanas about the murder and the message.

"This is certainly a puzzle," mused the patriarch of the Darkstar family. "But it may be even more of one than you think. Remember, any mage who could find Milo could probably change shape. It is possible that the murderer was not a halfling. She might not even be female."

Behind Jonathanas, his son Tanthas stifled a laugh, and was slapped by both his mother, Roselenna, and his wife, Marinda.

"I'm completely serious, Tanthas. In fact, I believe your uncle Rishanos was once targeted by a similar scheme. But he saw it coming and played along until he managed to tie his would-be assassin to a chair. With her own whip, no less." Jonathanas smiled serenely, and returned to the matter at hand.

"As for the matter of the message, I don't think I've ever heard of anyone called Bonedevil, nor have I ever murdered anyone. Well, there was that baron in the Shield Lands, but that was a special case… ah, no matter. Did you say it was written in demon blood?"

"Uh, yes."

"Hmm. Well, I suppose this Bonedevil is either insane or very misinformed. Either way, if he could kill Milo, he or she must be a powerful being. I'll advise all clan members of the threat, and recall all the less experienced ones to the demiplane. Rose, you try to resurrect Milo-maybe he can tell us more. Tanthas, you and Marinda go find any youngsters who can't _Plane Shift_ yet, and bring them back here. Gerbo, you stay here. I don't want anyone going outside this plane unless they're archmagi."

"Yes sir, Patriarch, sir!"

"You all have your orders. Let's go!"


	10. A Council of Heroes

Here, we see a slightly more sophisticated sort of humor, and get a quick glance at the greater world setting, which as stated earlier was once _Greyhawk_, but branched out along with the Darkstar Clan itself into other settings, including the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance (whence came Jonablealdonifertanimus...). The evil deity Chthon is one of my own characters, an Infernal who slew his father, Erythnul, and assumed his portfolio-he was made with the _Book of Vile Darkness_ in one hand, _Deities and Demigods_ in the other, and _The Epic Level Handbook_ in my lap. I suppose I must have written his stats holding the pen in my teeth.

Also, notice the hint of an even greater disaster than Bonedevil looming on the horizon-that's explained further in the sequel, which is in progress and a great deal better than this thing.

**The Council of Heroes**

6694 CY

The Underbough incident, as people called it, was one of the most shocking murders in history, but it was nothing compared to what was to come. At first, the killings were precise, calculated, and undetected until some time after they were performed, but they gradually became obvious, brutal, and rarely left any survivors for miles.

Razoar the efreet was found cut into exactly six hundred and sixty-six slices, each the thickness of a gold piece. He was identified only after the slices were magically reassembled, and was found to have been stabbed and marked in the same manner as Underbough. When his home was being cleaned out, a message listing Razoar's name, the fact that Jonathanas Darkstar had saved his life once, and more threats against the Darkstar clan was found soaked into the carpet beneath his bed.

Dreadwood forest burned to the ground, and amid the ashes, words written in glowing ichor stated that the faeries who lived there had raised Jonathanas I after the dragon Paraselson killed his parents.

The entire demiplane city of Union was destroyed by an interplanar flux. A sheet of adamantine was found floating near the point on the Astral Plane where the flux had begun, and it bore a message written in more demon blood that spoke of the many times Jonathanas and Roselenna had stayed there during their long adventuring career.

When the Darkstar clerics tried to resurrect Milo, Razoar, and all the other casualties of Bonedevil's deranged war of vengeance, they found to their horror that none of them could be brought back-Bonedevil had not only killed them, but somehow destroyed their very souls. The people of Union could never have been brought back anyway-if you were caught in a planar flux, you were gone for good-but only dark magic of the worst sort could have completely obliterated Razoar and Milo's immortal souls. Jonathanas recalled Gerbo's description of Milo's wound-how it had been even more withered than the rest of his body-and concluded that the murder weapon must have been a soul-eating sword, one of the most awful weapons in existence. Even worse, after months of investigation, the marks on Milo and Razoar were connected with an extinct cult called the Restorationists, an arcane society that had been devoted to reconstructing lost artifacts. The entire cult had been destroyed in 942 CY-every last member had been slain by the cult's founder, a sorcerer of considerable power. The founder then disappeared with all the artifacts that the cult had recreated- and the last such artifact was a soul-eating sword called Blackrazor.

The mark of the Restorationists, the loss of Milo's soul, and the obvious magical power the murderer wielded all pointed directly to this sorcerer. Attempts to divine more information on the mysterious Bonedevil all failed. Even Thariel's psionic _Metafaculty_, which could pierce even a god's shielding, failed to reveal anything.

This, however, actually solidified Jonathanas's estimation of his power: only a being of beyond deific power could have blocked the Darkstar clan's most skilled diviners. He quickly called the entire clan to the meeting hall.

The Darkstar clan's private demiplane was a magical marvel. Only Jonathanas himself truly understood how it functioned-others knew only that it somehow always had room for more. Here in the meeting hall, for example, no matter how many people sat at the huge table, there was always at least one empty seat. The table didn't seem to grow, and the people seated there did not seem to shrink, but there was always some spare room. Furthermore, attempts by the gnome technician -, Rishanos's 3rd cousin 25 times removed, to measure it always ended up indicating that the table was infinite and, therefore, did not in fact exist, taking into account of course the 22nd law of speculative dynamics, which clearly stated that if a tree fell in the forest, and it hit a dwarf, nobody cared, as well as the 5th principle of arcanospatial furniture arrangement. By this point, of course, he was invariably forced to retreat under a hail of shoes. This had led him to write a 382-page thesis on the subject of aerodynamic footwear and read it aloud at the next gathering, which in turn led to the creation, by Sheiryan the artificer, of the multiverse's first gnome-seeking animated clogs.

Today, however, he was to deliver some rather shorter news, which pleased Jonablealdonifertamimus greatly, as he would not have to wear his plate armor for as long as usual. He stood up, ducked the customary barrage of footwear, and began.

"As official speaker for the Darkstar clan," began the gnome, speaking from behind a huge tower shield, "It is my sad duty to announce the permanent death of Bernie Torunn, Lord Mayor of Alianost."

"Bern was found dead in his home yesterday morning. He was stabbed through the heart by a life-draining sword, believed to be the legendary Blackrazor. Bonedevil's mark was found on the entry wound, and all attempts at resurrection have failed. He was pronounced permanently deceased at 5:42 pm last night. Bernie was a good friend, a loyal member of the clan, and a fine specimen of dwarvenkind. He will surely be missed by all."

Jonablealdonifertamimus sat down. For once, nobody threw anything at him. Everyone in the chamber was thinking the same thing: Who would be next? Any one of them could be found murdered the next morning. Only the eldest of the clan could even survive for a few seconds against a being of Bonedevil's power. Anyone who left the demiplane was practically doomed. No one was safe.

Jonathanas stood. "If Bonedevil is allowed to rampage like this, how long will it be before others begin to copy him? Once word gets out that the legendary Darkstars are holed up in this demiplane, afraid of one lone maniac, our reputation will be ruined. Every mad necromancer and barbarian warlord who we've kept in check by our very existence will crawl out of the woodwork and go wild. Billions of trillions of people could be threatened by our absence. Even if we defeat Bonedevil, how long will it take to rebuild our image as defenders of the cosmos? Even if we do manage to regain our reputations, what will prevent someone else from ruining it? The more badly our reputation suffers, the more vulnerable we'll be in the future to misinformation and propaganda. I know for a fact that the clergy of Hextor would jump at the chance to launch an anti-Darkstar campaign. The only thing holding the god of tyranny back is our image. Once we're sullied, the entire multiverse could turn against us. Chthon, Nerull, Cyric, Gruumsh-even the demon princes and archdevils would unite at the drop of a hat if they got wind that the almighty Darkstar clan is faltering. Not even the entire clan could stand against a united pantheon of Evil. And what would happen if we were destroyed?"

The entire clan seemed to freeze in their seats. Before, they had been concerned for their survival. Now, they were gripped by pure, abject terror.

"You know of what I speak-the thing we live to contain. If we were destroyed, it would be freed. Unless we defeat Bonedevil now, the entire multiverse could be in danger."

The Patriarch drew his sword, making a final inspection of the enchanted blade. "Roselenna and I have decided to face Bonedevil ourselves. Any who wish may accompany us, but keep in mind that Bonedevil's vendetta seems to be with me alone. If I am slain, it is likely that he will not pursue the Darkstars further."

"Ridiculous!" Rishanos leapt to his feet, his bow appearing in his outstretched hand.. "Bonedevil swore to destroy the entire clan, and anyone associated with us. Besides, not even you are a match for that monster-I am coming with you, my brother!"

"As am I," said Tanthas.

"Me, too," added Marinda.

Slowly but surely, every single hand was raised in to the air.

"Very well, then," said Jonathanas with a grin, "Let's show the multiverse what it means to be a Darkstar."

-  
I'm currently giving the next chapter some major surgery, because ye gods, does this fight scene suck. It'll be up in a few hours.


	11. The First Battle

I've been working on this scene for about a month now, but of course it's only today that I've been able to really apply myself to this thing. Originally, as in the campaign, Bonedevil didn't bother with any fancy stuff like "tactics"--having been designed specifically to kill Jonathanas, he was immune to many of his favorite spells, and could more or less just sit there and hurl sonic-substituted fireballs until everyone else was dead. There was a brief moment of halfway good fight scene involving the creative use of _prismatic sphere_ and a swordfight between two spellcasters who thought they were fighters, but Bonedevil never really showed what he could do in the way of magic. This, I think, is much better--enjoy!

---**  
**

**The First Battle  
**

Bonedevil streaked through the city of Greyhawk, reveling in both the sensation of magical flight and the destruction he was causing. People screamed as he swooped low overhead, hurling fireballs left and right, abandoning all pretense of a specific target and randomly destroying anything that caught his eye, from fleeing, terrified peasants to the local heroes that tried to halt his progress. No one survived once he decided to kill them. No one.

Bonedevil flew up into the night sky to hover above Castle Greyhawk itself, and readied his favorite spell. With a mad shriek of laughter, he released the spell. A tiny bead of coruscating light flew from his fingers and sped into a crack in the castle door. About ten seconds later, the entire structure, and the surrounding houses, was obliterated. No rubble, no corpses--just a tremendous explosion, leaving a blackened, smoking crater over a mile wide. Bonedevil cackled wildly, and turned around to look for something else to blow up.

A glint of light on metal caught his eye, and he looked toward the horizon to see a huge shape looming over the foothills. Flying closer, Bonedevil saw that it was in fact many creatures--an army, in fact--advancing on Greyhawk. As a matter of fact, it was the largest army ever assembled: the Darkstar Clan, armed for war.

Millions of warriors marched in front--humans, elves, even goblins stood side-by-side, swords and pikes catching the pre-dawn light and creating a shimmering halo around them and their comrades. Archers trained bows and crossbows on their target, awaiting the signal to turn Bonedevil into the mother of all pincushions. Mages and clerics called upon powers both arcane and divine, groups of a hundred combining their spells to form apocalyptic blasts of fire, ice, and lightning, any one of which could blow a dragon from the sky. Speaking of dragons, thousands of them flew overhead, chromatics and metallics putting aside their differences to combat a common foe. At their head flew their gods, Bahamut and Tiamat, and a host of other deities--every Good god, and many Evil ones.

Monsters of all sorts swarmed behind the main body of the army, all differences cast aside in the face of a common foe. Here a flight of archons turned the sky around them into a storm of heavenly fury, there a swarm of demons scrambled over each other for the chance to take the first bite out of Bonedevil. Legions of formians and modrons stood rigidly beside raving hordes of slaadi, and the rilmani scattered throughout the ranks looked almost ecstatic as they stared in awe at the supreme Balance forming around them.

And at the head of this army was Patriarch Jonathanas Darkstar himself, with his familiar, Tiamat, on his shoulder, and his lifemate, Roselenna, at his side.

Jonathanas raised his sword. The magi began chanting, the archers cocked their weapons, and the infantry prepared to charge.

The sword fell.

The spells fired first, immense gouts of energy that warped the land itself as they flew toward Bonedevil. Grinning insanely, the mad hobgoblin shouted an incantation of his own, sheathing himself in protective magic just as the first spell reached him. Spell after spell crashed into him, each bolt delivering enough destructive power to shatter a mountain--and none of them even making him flinch.

Bonedevil cackled wildly over the roar of magical discharge. "You're more of an idiot than I ever dreamed, Darkstar--what delusion led you to think that these weaklings would make any difference in our battle?"

What delusion led _you_ to think that I've ever wronged you?" Jonathanas shouted back. "This is the first time we've even met--what grievance could you bear against me and my family?"

"You never let your own ignorance stop you from acting," Bonedevil snarled. "How great, indeed, is the mighty Jonathanas Darkstar, that he can utterly destroy one's life without even meeting one's gaze!"

It was at that moment that the archers began to fire. One row after another released their shafts, turning the sky black with a solid sheet of arrows and bolts. Steel, silver, cold iron, and adamantine shafts streaked towards Bonedevil, only to be caught on sorcerous winds and clatter uselessly to the ground. The hobgoblin smirked at the display, then gestured with a gauntleted hand--and as the archers watched in horror, their shafts rose from the ground and came hurtling back at them. Effortlessly piercing armor and flesh, the arrows tore through the ranks faster than the eye could follow, killing not only most of the archers, but the warriors standing beside them. The ordered ranks degenerated into chaos as the arrow storm drew ammunition from quivers, and weapons from scabbards, and even armor from bodies, transforming into an animate whirlwind of razor-edged metal.

Bonedevil giggled like a child at play as the monstrous creature tore into the Darkstar army. "How do you like my latest toy, Jonathanas? I call it a bladewind!"

"Your "toy" is an abomination, hobgoblin," Jonathanas shouted back. "And it's time it went back to whatever part of the Abyss you dragged it from!" Diving towards the deadly construct, he murmured an incantation and slammed his fist into the whirling storm of blades, releasing a disjoining spell into the heart of the whirlwind. The construct exploded, sending razor-sharp metal speeding in all directions. Jonathanas, warded against all but the most powerful weapons, was unharmed by the hail of jagged edges, but behind him, dozens of soldiers were killed or wounded, impaled and sliced to ribbons on their own comrades' arms and armor. Even some of the outsiders in their midst were wounded, but most simply shrugged it off, awaiting the signal to avenge their mortal fellows.

The signal came.

At Jonathanas' command, the immortals surged forward, engulfing Bonedevil in a mass of flailing limbs, flashing blades, and crackling spells. Seconds later, they were blown back as a massive discharge of pure magical energy radiated from Bonedevil's body.

"Now, I'm perfectly willing to fight you," the armored mage said in a matter-of-fact tone, "But it's impolite to rush me all at once… I'll tell you what--let's do this one alignment at a time! Lawful Good, ready? Go!" Laughing insanely, Bonedevil released a gigantic burst of elemental fire, instantly vaporizing a group of outsiders--whether they were actually Archons or not was anyone's guess. He might have continued down the alignment spectrum, but he never got the chance--Jonathanas shot at him like a bolt of lightning, magic lending momentum to his charge. Elf and hobgoblin collided with a resonating crash, and Jonathanas's sword slid between Bonedevil's breastplate and right pauldron, rasping as it cleaved through bone and sinew. At the same time, Rishanos sounded the call to retreat--and all but the most ferocious monsters gladly complied.

Bonedevil was of another mind. "Where do you think you're going!" he howled at the fleeing clan. Smashing Jonathanas aside with a gauntleted fist, the demented sorcerer shrieked another invocation, and a tiny bead of glimmering energy formed at the tip of his finger. As Jonathanas, Tanthas, and everyone else who'd been close enough to watch Castle Greyhawk explode looked on in horror, the bead shot to the ground, where it hovered a few feet above the battlefield, and slowly pulsed…

Once.

The panicked soldiers nearest the bead scrambled backwards, knocking over their fellows in a frantic attempt to escape.

Twice.

The Gods, realizing in omniscience what was about to happen, vanished, taking most of their forces with them.

Thrice.

The bead expanded into a globe of multicolored light over a mile in diameter, engulfing the entire army. Armor melted. Flesh sizzled. Blood boiled in veins. Bones crumbled to powder. As before, when the blast withdrew, the only thing left was a smoking crater, and the scattered remains of the army--the two dozen or so members who were either strong enough to shield themselves from the brunt of the blast, or far enough from ground zero that the explosion never reached them. Jonathanas stared, appalled, at the shining glass of the crater's surface. Tanthas, who had taken the full force of the spell by jumping in front of Roselenna, fell back into his mother's arms, coughing up smoke from his seared lungs. On the far end of the crater, Rishanos mumbled an incantation and shapechanged into a troll, taking advantage of the beast's regenerative powers to regrow a leg. In the air over the crater, a few dragons and outsiders circled aimlessly, unable to grasp what had happened or why their gods had abandoned them. And above it all hovered Bonedevil, cackling like the lunatic he was. "That'll teach them to pull out," he shouted, his voice becoming higher and more manic with every word. "When you fuck with Bonedevil, you stay here and _you keep on fucking until I say you're done!"_

Jonathanas slowly rose to meet Bonedevil's gaze, so far beyond anger now that his face seemed almost peaceful. "Well, that was juvenile. What's next, fart jokes?"

"Well, if you insist…" Bonedevil chanted something in a harsh, glottal tongue Jonathanas had never heard. Suddenly, a cloud of foul-smelling vapor surrounded them both, and before the stunned Jonathanas could figure out what had happened, his adversary was right in front of him, Blackrazor scything down towards his head. Jonathanas threw himself back, but not fast enough to avoid a thin cut across his stomach. Using the force of Bonedevil's blow to his advantage, he spun into the stroke, his own blade shearing through the fog toward his adversary's neck.

It was at this moment that Jonathanas realized he could no longer see his adversary. In fact, he couldn't see anything. His eyes stung from the noxious fumes, blurring his vision with tears and making his strokes clumsy and imprecise. He began muttering a spell to disperse the vapors, but a blinding pain in his side made his words choke off in a bloody gurgle.

Bonedevil yanked Blackrazor out of Jonathanas's side, licking each side of the blade clean in one smooth stroke of the tongue. "Had enough yet?"

"No." A scroll materialized in Jonathanas's left hand--a potent magic item he kept hidden for just such an occasion. The _wish_ spell contained within had been silenced, stilled, and quickened, and Jonathanas had spent several months and a significant fraction of his personal power formulating the request imprinted on it--it was a significant investment, but it was worth it. With a thought, Jonathanas triggered the scroll, and in a flash, the situation reversed itself.

The request made was an incredibly intricate bit of supernatural legalese that any soul-collecting fiend would have envied, taking up several pages in even the simplest languages, but the gist of it was this: the caster, by invoking the scroll, expressed to the cosmos a desire that both he/she/it and his/her/its opponent be restored to exactly the state of physical, mental, and spiritual health they had existed in at the moment of six o'clock the previous morning, Alianost local time. In short, both Jonathanas and Bonedevil were now returned to full combat strength, but all the magical defenses they had placed upon themselves that day were no longer active. For Jonathanas, who had long since made most of his defensive spells permanent to save time and energy, this only meant that his wounds were healed—but Bonedevil, like most sorcerers, relied on his greater reserves of power to apply whatever augmentation he needed.

His _fly_ spell, for instance, had only been cast that afternoon.

The hobgoblin plummeted toward the ground, frantically trying to reactivate the magic that kept him aloft, but Jonathanas rocketed down after him, crashing into his foe the moment before he hit the ground. Bonedevil screamed in agony, and Jonathanas heard something break--likely something important. He, however, was unharmed, and on his feet in moments, his sword pointing menacingly at… at… _"What in the raving depths!"_

A pile of snow.


	12. Harsh Terms

This was originally the first chapter of Book Three, and was preceded by a short prologue in which Bonedevil expresses anger for no apparent reason. I've cut that out, obviously, but little else has been changed from the original.

DM's Notes: Tiamat was, of course, named for the five-headed dragon goddess of _Forgotten Realms_--and I actually did a mini-adventure once about the little gal's ongoing feud with her namesake.

---

**Harsh Terms**

6694 CY

Jonathanas, Roselenna, and Tanthas Darkstar sat at the council table in the meeting hall of their private demiplane. Just a week ago, the entire Darkstar clan, composed of hundreds of beings and transcending race, religion, and even alignment, had sat at this table as Jonathanas declared war on Bonedevil. Now, almost everyone who had sat at that table was dead, and Jonathanas knew that many would never return. For most of his life, he had felt invulnerable, and he had known that even if he or one of his friends should fall, Roselenna would be there with magic that would restore him to life. But Bonedevil and his soul-eating blade, Blackrazor, could destroy him forever. He had seen Rose, Tanthas, and even himself die many times, but if he fell even once before Bonedevil, he would never rise again. And that frightened him.

Tiamat, his pseudodragon familiar, sensed his anxiety. She climbed up on his shoulder and nuzzled his neck, doing her best to ease her friend's fears. _What's wrong, master?_

"Oh, Tiamat," Jonathanas suddenly grabbed the tiny lizard and hugged her. "Don't you ever leave me!"

_Don't worry, master,_ Tiamat extricated herself from the wizard's bear hug. _That old hobgoblin won't ever catch me! Or you, for that matter._

"I don't know about that, Tiamat. As long as Bonedevil has that sword, all I have to do is slip up once and it's all over!"

_You won't slip up. Hey, you're Jonathanas Darkstar! You always win!_

"Did I win the fight with Bonedevil? The entire clan got wiped out--along with half the outer planes, the ecosystem of the entire Flanaess, and most of the gods! And Bonedevil _still_ got away!"

_You'll get him next time._

"If there is ever a 'next time,' the entire multiverse could be destroyed! Just one battle ended in disaster! It'll take centuries for the Flanaess to recover from the magic we unleashed. If we fight again, it could rip apart the entire fabric of reality! Besides, I don't want any more deaths on my conscience."

Your_ conscience! Bonedevil destroyed the clan, not you!_

"But I led them to him! I tried to tell them that Bonedevil only wanted me, but they went anyway. If I had just been more firm and faced him myself, this would never have happened."

"Listen to yourself, Father," Tanthas broke in. "Do you really think that Bonedevil would have stopped if you were dead? Think! Remember what he was doing when we found him?"

"Wrecking Castle Greyhawk."

"And how exactly does that hurt you? He knew that all the Darkstars had left the Material Plane. Bonedevil is utterly mad! He may have started out attacking the Darkstar clan, but now he simply performs random acts of destruction and violence! If you were dead, Bonedevil would have nothing to give even a semblance of focus to his insanity, and he would get even worse!"

"I…suppose you are right…"

"I _am_ right! And while you're beating yourself up over deaths that you weren't even responsible for, who knows what Bonedevil may be doing? Unleashing plagues of locusts? Contaminating entire oceans with megapede venom? Opening gates to the Abyss, or even worse places? He has the power to rip apart the fabric of reality, and the only thing keeping him from doing it is that he wants to kill you himself. You nearly had him last time--just keep trying until you get him!"

"But the multiverse--"

"--Would be no worse off than if we let Bonedevil run wild."

Jonathanas was about to argue further when Roselenna suddenly shouted, "I found him!"

"What!" Jonathanas leapt to his feet. "You mean you managed to _Scry_ Bonedevil? He's shielded against divinations!"

"Correct, Darkstar," said Bonedevil, speaking directly to the magical sensor. "However, I have lowered that shield in order to deliver an ultimatum."

"I told you he wanted me," Jonathanas said with an air of vindication.

"As you have no doubt figured out for yourself," Bonedevil continued, "The being you fought recently was only a simulacrum of myself--one created several years ago, when I was significantly weaker. I had been saving it for a special occasion, but my newest weapon will render it and everything else in my armament obsolete."

The hobgoblin's face split into a terrible smirk. "I have developed a spell that will tear a permanent, irreparable hole in the fabric of reality. If you have not come to me by ten tonight, I will open a gate to the Negative Energy Plane."

"Unless the tear is somehow mended, life energy will slowly be drained from the Material Plane, killing everyone and everything on Oerth. The world will become a dark, evil realm inhabited only by soulless wights. If you still refuse to show yourself, I will do this to every plane on the Great Wheel until all life is extinguished."

"If you wish to prevent this from happening, you will meet me tonight above what is now Greyhawk Crater. You will bring no allies, and we will duel to the death. If you lose, surrender, or run away, I will obliterate Oerth."

"These are my terms. They are not negotiable. Goodbye."

Bonedevil made an arcane gesture, and the scrying sensor was cut off.

"Now there's a persuasive argument," said Jonathanas, as he picked up his sword and strapped it to his side.

"What?" Roselenna jumped up. "You aren't really going to fight him yourself, are you?"

"I have to! Didn't you hear? He's gonna blow a hole in the universe!" Jonathanas walked up to his lifemate and looked her in the eye. "I have to fight Bonedevil alone. If he sees anyone with me, he'll cast the spell!" He lowered his voice. "Rose, if I die, I want you to leave this multiverse. Go to Toril. There are still some Darkstars there, some who didn't get my summons. They know you're my lifemate. They can help you adapt to the Realms." He hugged her, and gave her a tender kiss on the forehead. "I hope I'll see you again, Rose."

She returned the kiss, and stepped back. Jonathanas could see a tear in her eye. "Good luck, Jonathanas."

He turned, and walked out of the meeting hall.


	13. Final Revenge

Behold, my first exercise in mid-chapter perspective change.

---**  
**

**Final Revenge**

Bonedevil sat in his study, gleefully watching as Jonathanas Darkstar emerged from a portal near the place where the Free City of Greyhawk had once stood. The wizard had shielded himself from direct scrying and other divinations, but a simple _Prying Eyes_ spell had no trouble physically locating him. Bonedevil watched until it was clear that Darkstar intended to wait for him to come.

Unfortunately for Darkstar, he would have to wait a very long time.

Bonedevil dismissed the magical sentries and walked to the portal room. There, he began to cast the spell he had told Darkstar about. But he was not attempting to destroy anything. He had not mentioned the other use for which the _Planar Rip_ spell had been developed:

Breaking into a magically shielded demiplane.

He easily penetrated the barriers insulating the Darkstar demiplane from all others, and entered, drawing Blackrazor as he went. Finally, he would be able to kill Roselenna and Tanthas. Finally he would avenge his beloved Kira.

This would be the greatest night of his life.

Meanwhile, above Greyhawk Crater, Jonathanas Darkstar wondered if he should head back to the demiplane. No, that might be taken as fleeing. But 10 p.m. had come and gone. Perhaps Bonedevil had decided not to come, leaving Jonathanas waiting here for as long as he could, and then cast the spell when he left. Maybe he had---

His starjewel suddenly began to resonate. That could only mean one thing.

Roselenna was in trouble.

He instantly _Plane Shifted_ back to the demiplane and followed the starjewel's signals to the spot where it indicated.

Bonedevil stood over Roselenna's mutilated corpse, Blackrazor still wet with his lifemate's blood. Tanthas lay only a few feet away, slashed open from throat to groin.

Jonathanas stood silently for several moments, staring dumbly at the horrific remains of his wife and child. Then he drew his sword in one lightning-fast motion and hurled himself at Bonedevil, shrieking at the top of his lungs.

Bonedevil melted away, and Jonathanas fell through empty air to collapse, sobbing, in front of Roselenna's body.

His entire world had collapsed around him.

His lifemate was dead.

His son was dead.

His entire family was dead.

Everyone he knew and loved was dead.

And, for all intents and purposes, he was dead.

He slowly walked to the bedroom that he and Roselenna had shared, and fell into the mattress. The last thing he felt before slipping into horrible, nightmare-filled slumber was Tiamat's forked tongue caressing his face.

Bonedevil materialized in his lair, laughing in triumph.

He had done it. He had killed Roselenna. Tanthas too, but he had been an unexpected bonus, like the Darkstars he had killed in his first battle with them. His true target had always been Roselenna.

Now, Jonathanas would suffer exactly as Bonedevil had. Even on the off chance that he ever found love again, he would be scarred for life. He would see Roselenna's face every time he lay with a woman. Every time he held a child in his arms he would see the ravaged corpse of Tanthas. He would suffer exactly as Bonedevil had.

This was the sweetest revenge Bonedevil could imagine--but one thing still remained:

He had to kill Jonathanas.

Only then would Kira be truly avenged.

Jonathanas awoke in a cold sweat, half-remembered nightmares and ghoulish visions still swirling through his mind.

"Rose…" He looked at the spot where his lifemate usually lay, and remembered the events of last night.

_Oh, gods, she's dead._

He remembered Bonedevil standing over her body, cackling madly as Blackrazor devoured her soul. He remembered hurling himself at the laughing monstrosity, only to fall through empty air and land in a heap at Rose's side. He remembered finally getting up and walking, in shock, into his room. He remembered feeling Tiamat trying to console him as he fell asleep.

He had wondered why he hadn't felt any grief beyond the first surge that had sent him flying at Bonedevil. He had wondered where the tears where.

Now they came.

He collapsed, weeping, into his pillow. He cried for hours, and would have cried even longer if his tear ducts hadn't run dry. Finally he sat up, wiped the tears from his face, and went to find Roselenna.

He found her, and Tanthas, where he had left them the previous night. He moved them into the small chamber that functioned as the clan's morgue, and stayed there for several hours.

At the end of this time, Jonathanas was informed of several hundred incoming Darkstars. The branches of the clan stationed in Toril and Ravenloft had finally answered the week-old summons to gather on the demiplane. He quickly went to the portal room to await their arrival.


	14. Sweet Memory

Here, we meet Rishas Darkstar, an NPC-turned-DMPC-turned-PC who has a significant role in the sequel-and who gives new meaning to the term "spoony bard."

DM's Notes: Rasheer is the male protagonist of the elven tragedy _Rasheer eth Jemendiel_, a casanova who becomes abruptly monogamous when he runs into the woman of his dreams, Jemendiel the ranger. He's effectively the equivalent of Romeo in the real world, hence Rose's sarcastic invocation towards Jonathanas.

**Sweet Memory**

By the time Jonathanas reached the portal room, the last remnants of clan Darkstar had already arrived. From the Realms, there came a mixed group of elves, dwarves, halflings, and even several goblinoids. Rishas, a Moon Elf well into his fourteenth century, was the eldest of the Torillian Darkstars, and one of Rishanos Darkstar's grandchildren. He walked up to his great-uncle and clapped him on the back. "Jonathanas! It's been a while!"

"So it has," said Jonathanas, a faint smile flitting across his face. "Rishas, I am afraid I have terrible news. I will inform the entire clan at council." He turned to face the portal leading to the Dread Realm.

The Ravenloft branch consisted entirely of undead, mostly Banshees, Baelnorn, and Wichtlins. One of the most desiccated Baelnorn glided up to Jonathanas, unlike his brethren, who kept a respectful distance from the Patriarch.

"Revered Progenitor," rasped the elven lich, "Why have you summoned us?"

"I will reveal that as soon as we are all seated in the meeting hall." Jonathanas would have normally told Karleth to lighten up, but now he was in no mood to deal with an obsessively formal undead archmage.

"Very well, Patriarch." The skeletal being teleported to its seat.

Within a few minutes, the last remains of the Darkstar clan were seated in the meeting hall. Although the table varied in size according to the number of people sitting at it, everyone could tell that there were much fewer attendees than usual.

Jonathanas stood. "My friends," he began, "I have terrible news. As most of you know, the Darkstar clan was called to this demiplane about a week ago to discuss the entity known as Bonedevil. However, it was decided that he was too much of a threat to wait for the rest of the clan to arrive. As many Darkstars as could be gathered, as well as every ally we had, faced Bonedevil over the ruins of Castle Greyhawk."

"Bonedevil destroyed us. He slaughtered half the Flanaess as well, and finally retreated when I wounded him in combat. He then lured me out to duel with him, and snuck into this demiplane and murdered the last survivors."

"The entire Oerth branch of Clan Darkstar is dead."

The meeting hall was utterly silent.

"Fortunately, we still have hope. Many of the clan fell to the soul-eater, Blackrazor, and those can never be brought back-but most were slain by Bonedevil's magic, and any cleric of reasonable power should be able to resurrect them."

"All clan members with clerical abilities are to begin reviving the slain immediately. Mages, I need you to analyze the spell Bonedevil used to get into the demiplane, and see if you can block it. No Darkstar is to leave the demiplane for any reason."

Jonathanas's orders were carried out to the letter. Within a day, almost everyone who had died on that day was raised from the dead, and the wizards had begun work on fortifying the boundaries of the demiplane against disruptive magic of the sort Bonedevil had used.

Jonathanas stood at the door of the hospital ward, watching as his niece Shiara cast _True Resurrection_ to call back the spirit of one of her children. As he watched, a faint blue glow emanated from her hands, and white light flowed out of her, slowly shaping itself into a young half-elf boy. The lad, who had died in the first few seconds of spell slinging, couldn't have been more than nineteen. He opened his eyes, sat up, and threw himself into his mother's arms.

_There'll never be a moment like that for me and Rose,_ thought Jonathanas. That sword had utterly obliterated her soul. The only way to bring her back would be to destroy Blackrazor, and like any artifact, the black blade could only be destroyed by a method chosen at the moment of creation. Such a secret would be carefully guarded by Bonedevil, and knowing him it would probably be something horrible, involving an act of terrible destruction. Not even Roselenna was worth that.

Jonathanas walked from door to door, sometimes checking on a cleric's progress, sometimes embracing a lost relative. The joy that permeated the air helped to ease the pain in his heart.

As he left the hospital ward, melancholy began to creep into his soul again. No matter how many times they fought Bonedevil, he would always get away. And each time, he would use Blackrazor on a few more people. Slowly but surely, the clan would die. The only viable option was to fight Bonedevil himself.

Jonathanas walked to his room and sat down on the bed. He looked at his bedside table and noticed an old, faded gnomish spectragraph.

It was of himself and Roselenna, standing in front of their old keep in Alianost Forest.

He was wearing a simple brown robe, and his sword hung at his side. Roselenna was wearing the supple leather that had been her trademark in those days, and also wore a sword. She had her arm around Jonathanas's shoulder, and he had his around her waist. Tiamat, who had been quite jealous of Rose in those days, had two claws sticking out behind Roselenna's head.

Jonathanas remembered that day. That had been when he and Rose had slain the mind flayer assassin, Yarrick Zan, who had murdered Jonathanas's parents and forced him out of the demiplane city of Alianost, which had been founded by the ancient Alion Darkstar, and was now part of the very demiplane he was standing in. They had also taken the opportunity to announce their engagement. Jonablealdonifertanimus, who had then worked for the _Alianost Mirror_, had decided to record this momentous occasion by field-testing his new Spectramantic Visual Recorder which Utilizes the Principles of Illusion Magic to Create a Permanent Two-Dimensional Image on a Piece of Parchment (Patent Pending). The device worked perfectly, creating a perfect image of the couple. Granted, it did explode after producing the sheet of parchment, but that was to be expected. Jonathanas had used magic of his own to transfer the image to a more permanent medium: ironwood paper.

The enchanted wood was nearly indestructible, and if cut with powerful magic weapons and made into paper, anything written on it would endure for millions of years. Now it was the only reminder he had of his beloved. Once her body was disintegrated and the ashes interred in the crypts, in accordance with clan customs, he would have only this to keep from forgetting her.

As he held the image, other memories began flooding back.

The day they first met. He had disguised himself as a drow in order to infiltrate their great city beneath the Crystalmists and rescue several captives, including a 20-year-old Rishanos, and encountered a lovely young female with a similar disguise and agenda. At first they had both thought that the other was a drow, and she had lured him into a trap.

_"All right, you black-skinned son of a bitch! Where are they!" _

_"What the heck-" Suddenly the drow maiden he knew as Irrintha shimmered and melted away to reveal a red-haired surface elf. She kicked him in the shins, knocking him to the ground, and whipped out her scimitar and pointed it at his throat. Jonathanas's mind spun as he tried to comprehend this abrupt turn of events- she had done the exact same thing to him that he had intended to do to her. _

_"I asked you a question, jet-head! Where are they?" _

_"I think there's been a slight misunderstanding here." He dropped his own disguise and revealed his true surface elf form. "You see, I'm not really a drow, either."_

Their first real adventure together. They had been contacted by the mayor of Alianost, Ulfgar Torrun, to wipe out a dire rat infestation in the city's sewers. They had fought their way through the slime-filled tunnels and down a long, winding staircase, to find a huge door blocking their progress. They knew that whatever was behind that door, it would be dangerous.

_"Well, shall we see what's behind door number one?" _

_"Why else would we be down here," Roselenna replied. "But first…" _

_She grabbed him, pulled him over, and kissed him. Jonathanas probably would have found it rather enjoyable if they had not just been wading through raw sewage. _

_"Pthpththtpphtt! What the hell was that for!" _

_"Just in case we get killed." _

_"Eech! Some first kiss," he muttered to himself. _

_"That was your _first kiss_!" _

_"Well, come on! I'm only a hundred and six!" _

_"Whatever. Now come on, Rasheer."_

Their wedding. Less than a week after reclaiming Alianost from Yarrick, the newly appointed Defenders of Alianost were married in the traditional elven style. Both had been so nervous that Jonathanas had not memorized even a single spell that morning. But the wedding had gone off without a hitch. Even their newest friend, the Vrock demon called Rhunad, had behaved, not even dragging a single damned soul off to eternal torment (although he had presented some seating problems, as he was essentially a nine-foot-tall vulture). The ceremony was beautiful-and the wedding night even more so.

The birth of their son, Tanthas. Jonathanas had been the typical hysterical husband (what _did_ one use the hot water for, anyway?), but it was a very easy birth, and a very healthy child.

Now both Roselenna and Tanthas were dead. He was the last Darkstar that could remember those moments. In fact, he was one of the last beings alive that could remember them. He was certainly the only such being that cared.

He set the spectragraph back on the table and walked back to the hospital ward. If he couldn't bring Rose back, than at least he could help with the others. And then, perhaps, he could avenge her.


	15. Hollow Victory

I'm still proud of this fight scene--and it's completely unchanged from the original!**  
**

**--- **

**Hollow Victory**

Jonathanas stepped onto the Material Plane, guided by some unknown instinct to the spot where he knew he would find Bonedevil.

The black-armored hobgoblin hovered above the vast crater where the Free City of Greyhawk had stood just days ago. He turned to face Jonathanas, noting that his sword was already drawn.

"So eager to be slaughtered, Darkstar? Or perhaps you meant to stab me in the back.

Not very _heroic_, elf. But then again, you always were a murderer."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh, don't play innocent with me, Darkstar--you know exactly what I'm taking about. She never did anything to you, and you killed her in cold blood!"

"I've never murdered anyone my entire life!"

"Liar!_ You killed her!" _

_"Who? Who did I kill?" _

_"MURDERER!"_ Bonedevil suddenly drew his sword and pointed it a Jonathanas. A bolt of crackling black energy shot from Blackrazor. Jonathanas deflected the bolt with his sword, but the metal rusted where the negative energy bolt touched it.

Bonedevil leaped at Darkstar, striking at him with so much force that Jonathanas was knocked back almost five feet. The mad hobgoblin attacked again and again, and Jonathanas barely blocked each slash. Finally Bonedevil managed to rein in his berserker fury, and switched to more sophisticated tactics. He hammered out a string of attacks, and when Jonathanas tried to counter, he twisted his blade to trap Darkstar's weapon against his side. Jonathanas tried to free his sword, but the unnaturally strong battle-mage didn't budge. Armored as he was, Bonedevil held the blade tightly against his torso and spun, wrenching the sword from Jonathanas's grip and forcing him to retreat until he could recall the blade with a _Mage Hand_ spell. Jonathanas and Bonedevil circled each other, looking for flaws in the other's defense.

Bonedevil, swaggering and arrogant as he was, still managed to put up a literally perfect defense. Every tiny adjustment in stance was immediately countered, but he found the time to taunt his opponent.

"You know, I've waited more than five thousand years to kill you. Of course, I've also been after Roselenna, but only because I wanted you to suffer before I killed you--the way I have suffered ever since you murdered Kira. Now, Roselenna is dead, and in a few moments, you will join her."

"You murdering bastard," hissed Jonathanas. "you'll pay for killing her!"

"Killing her? Is that all you think I did? Your naiveté is so charming, Darkstar."

"No! You couldn't--you wouldn't!"

"You're married to a very lovely woman, Darkstar. I wouldn't be surprised if we weren't the only ones."

"Liar! She would never--"

"Oh, grow up, Darkstar. Your juvenile idealism is sickening." _As is your gullibility,_ he thought to himself. He might have violated Roselenna if he'd had the time, but he had known that once he attacked her, he would have only moments to finish the job before Jonathanas appeared. Still, his little fib had had the desired effect.

_"I am going to cut you into so many pieces that even the worms won't find them all!"_ The enraged Jonathanas leaped at Bonedevil, raining blows down on him. The mad spellsword parried each strike, and aimed a series of slashes at Darkstar's head. Jonathanas deflected each one with perfect precision, and countered by thrusting at Bonedevil's throat. He blocked the reckless attack and swept Darkstar's legs out from under him. The elf rolled away from Bonedevil's downward cut and leapt to his feet. He swung at Blackrazor, trying to knock the weapon out of Bonedevil's hand. The hobgoblin took the full force of the blow rather than release the sword, and Blackrazor screeched in agony as the two weapons grated against each other, making sparks big enough to light a bonfire. Bonedevil pulled away and swung the soul-eater in an arc that would have sheared Jonathanas in half if he had not blocked it. He stepped back and sent a _Lightning Bolt_ crackling from his fingertips towards Bonedevil. The spell glanced off the battlemage's shielding and arced off into the twilight. Bonedevil sent a hail of fiery bolts whizzing at Jonathanas. The elf's sword blurred back and forth, knocking each _Flame Arrow_ out of the air. Darkstar shouted a fire rune, and eight enormous fireballs shot from his hand and streaked towards Bonedevil. Immune to fire, Bonedevil cackled insanely as he flew from the inferno, sword pointed at Jonathanas's heart. Another black ray shot from Blackrazor, and Jonathanas just barely blocked it. He cast a _Fly_ spell of his own and shot into the air to continue the battle.

Now the fight became even more intense. In the absence of gravity, the combatants attacked from every imaginable angle, striking in every pattern that came to mind. Bonedevil knew that the lighter, more agile elf had the advantage, so he resumed taunting him. "One wonders how you got along with that female," Bonedevil sneered as he blocked strike after strike. "Quite a noisy little lady. Screaming, pleading, crying…"

Jonathanas redoubled his efforts, hammering out more blows than Bonedevil would have thought possible. The black-armored monstrosity easily blocked Darkstar's frenzied attacks, taunting him all the while. "Quite messy, too. Once I finally got around to killing her I couldn't tell which blood came from where!"

Now Jonathanas was practically foaming at the mouth. He hurled himself at the gloating Bonedevil, slashing furiously as he tried to cut off that awful voice and what it was implying. The demonic warrior blocked his attacks as if he were teaching him how to fight, not even flinching as the enraged Jonathanas turned the air around him into a storm of flashing steel. Somewhere in the back of his head, a tiny voice told him that there was something wrong with Bonedevil's claims, but it was washed away by a new wave of rage and hate. Bonedevil wasn't helping much either.

"And she was good too! Almost as good as the one you killed!"

"Shut up!" Jonathanas flew at Bonedevil, only to realize that he had wanted him to do that. He threw himself backward, but the tip of Blackrazor cut into his jugular vein. Jonathanas staggered back, blood squirting from the cut. He barely managed to gasp out the words of a _Wish_ spell before it was cut off in a rush of blood. Fortunately, the spell took effect before he lost much more, and a fully healed Jonathanas leaped back into the battle.

"Good reflexes, elf," cackled Bonedevil. "Too bad you aren't very wise in the ways of the world. If only you had been there…"

"_Shut up!"_ Jonathanas's eyes practically shot fire. He lunged at Bonedevil, but the crazed sorcerer stepped aside and slashed him across the back of his legs. Fortunately, he wasn't hamstrung, but Darkstar stumbled and fell. Before he could move, Bonedevil was over him, sword thrusting toward his throat. Jonathanas rolled aside before the blow could land, and snatched his sword up again. Bonedevil tried to bring his sword back up, but Jonathanas swung low and cut him in two at the waist. He stood over the mortally wounded Bonedevil, sword ready.

Bonedevil lay there, helpless--_dying_--yet still trying to do as much damage as possible. "She called for you, you know."

"Shut up." Jonathanas tightened his grip on his sword.

"She did. The whole time, she trusted that you would save her."

_"Shut up."_

"And she fought! Oh, yes, she did!"

_"Shut up!"_ Jonathanas plunged his sword into Bonedevil's chest. But still the monster raved on.

"She kicked, and screamed, and bit…"

_"I said shut up!"_ He stabbed Bonedevil again.

"…and she cried, and pleaded, and--"

_"Shut up, damn you!"_ Jonathanas stabbed him again and again, and Bonedevil laughed maniacally. He kept hacking at the dying monstrosity until Bonedevil's last cackle dissolved into a bloody gurgle, and still he attacked. He didn't stop until his arms were ready to fall off, and Bonedevil's body was reduced to a mutilated lump of bloody flesh wrapped in battered bits of metal.


	16. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

The Darkstar clan's private demiplane had no shrine or temple of any kind. It had never seemed necessary, since many elders were more powerful than the gods, and no Darkstar cleric drew on specific deities for their power, relying instead on the universal principles that even the gods defined themselves by. On the rare occasion that a Darkstar died permanently, the funeral service took place in the part of the demiplane set aside and named for that purpose. However, it had been designed to handle one, perhaps two bodies at a time. Bonedevil had slain many times that number. So, the service was taking place outside the cavern complex where most of the clan lived, in the newly restored Alianost Forest. The entire clan had gathered to pay their final respects to the deceased, most notably Tanthas and Roselenna Darkstar.

The bodies were each laid on makeshift wooden biers. The newly appointed Patriarch Rishas stood and called the closest friends and relatives of the deceased up to say a few words.

Most were serious, such as Karleth's tale of how Roselenna had saved his life during the Second Greyhawk War. Others were humorous, like Rishanos's account of how he had had to chase a 17-year-old Tanthas across the Multiverse after he found his father's _Amulet of the Planes_. And some simply told of how they had lived their lives, of their loyalty in the face of death, and of the sorrow with which they said goodbye.

When each had spoken, Rishas stood. As Patriarch, it was his duty to cast the spell that would disintegrate the bodies. As he prepared the spell, however, there was a blinding flash of light. After two weeks of absence and the assumption that he must be dead, Jonathanas Darkstar appeared before the bodies.

He was covered in dried blood, and his robes were torn to shreds, but it was not his wardrobe that shocked the assembly into silence.

His eyes were bottomless, black pits.

He walked to the body of Roselenna, and looked down at his lifemate for several moments. Then he picked up her corpse, stared sadly at the rest of the clan, and vanished.

---

Where did he go? What the hell happened there? Find out for yourself in _Blackrazor_--coming soon!

Fin.


End file.
